BREAKING. Star Wars on TV 'heading in a new direction'; Star Wars: The Clone Wars 'winding down' after 5 seasons.

George Lucas billion dollar Star Wars empire on television is "heading in a new direction" Lucasfilm announced online today and which has been creating Star Wars The Clone Wars animation show for The Cartoon Network.

South African viewers will start to see the 5th season of Star Wars: The Clone Wars from 1 April at 19:55 on The Cartoon Network (DStv 304) which is suddenly burning through the 5th season's 20 episodes as fast as possible with brand-new episodes which will be shown every weekday from April.

The 5th season finale of Star Wars The Clone Wars is cataclysmically amazing and shocking and shockingly great television.

"As we enter into an exciting new era focused on the next Star Wars trilogy, Lucasfilm has decided to pursue a new direction in animated programming. We are exploring a whole new Star Wars series set in a time period previously untouched in Star Wars films or television programming. You can expect more details in the months to come," says Lucasfilm on its website.

"As part of this shift, we have also made some key decisions affecting Star Wars: The Clone Wars. After five highly successful and critically acclaimed seasons of Star Wars: The Clone Wars, we feel the time has come to wind down the series."

"While the studio is no longer producing new episodes for The Cartoon Network, we're continuing production on new Clone Wars story arcs that promise to be some of the most thrilling adventures ever seen."

Lucafilm says this "bonus content" of Star Wars: The Clone Wars will be released elsewhere but does not yet specify details (it definitely won't be on Turner Broadcasting System's The Cartoon Network).

The planned new animation Star Wars show, Star Wars Detours is now also being shelved and postponed, because the decision to launch that new show was made before George Lucas decided to go ahead with a new film trilogy.

"Detours was conceived and produced before we decided to move forward with the new Star Wars trilogy, and in the wake of that decision, Lucasfilm has reconsidered whether launching an animated comedy prior to the launch of Episode VII makes sense. As a result, we've decided to postpone the release of Detours until a later date."

In an online video on the site, Dave Filoni, the supervising director of Star Wars: The Clone Wars teases with an amazing as-yet-unseen clip from the show.

"It's not over yet.  In fact, the best is yet to come," says Dave Filoni in the clip. "We have some of the most exciting, some of the most important story arcs still coming your way. Now what could there be left to tell? Well, as die-hard fans of the series, you know there is still some gaps in there - things that are really crucial to the overall story arc of the Star Wars universe that we need to finish off and tell you."

"They are the best episodes that my crew has ever committed to screen," says Dave Filoni.and then fans can start to see a sneak peek of new (and thrilling!) Star Wars: The Clone Wars material.

The planned Star Wars live action TV drama show gets a name: Star Wars Underworld.

The planned live-action Star Wars TV drama set in that galaxy far, far away now has a name. George Lucas' planned hour long TV drama will be called Star Wars Underworld.

ALSO READ: George Lucas: 50 episodes of Star Wars live action TV show is ready to go; just waiting for technology to make the production process cheaper.
ALSO READ: New Star Wars TV drama on hold; but the hourlong live-action show will be mostly set on Coruscant; could possibly be filmed in Prague.

Star Wars producer Rick McCallum revealed the title of the planned TV drama to IGN as Star Wars Underworld.

He told IGN that, as previously reported, the special effect required to make the show a reality are still too prohibitively costly for Lucasfilm.

Whereas the movies were made for $100 million each, the Star Wars Underworld episodes would have to be produced for around $5 million each. As previously reported there is at least 50 episodic scripts that have already been written.

To produce them currently, would however cost much more than $5 million per episode due to the extensive special effects needed to make the show, set in the Star Wars universe between Episode III and Episode IV authentically look like the world of the films.

''The scripts take place between Episodes III and IV," Rick McCallum told IGN. "It's that twenty-year period when Luke is growing up. It's not about Luke, but it's about that period when the Empire is really trying to take things forward. It's called Underworld - that's the working title - and it's underneath what's going on: the criminals and the gangs that are running everything.''

''It's really a budget thing. How do we get it down. We're trying to put the same effects and technology from those two-hour films, into one-hour episodes, and do it every week for $5 million an episode.''

''We have fifty unbelievable scripts,'' says Rick McCallum who calls the scripts ''timeless''.

''Each episode is bigger than any of the prequels were. They're complex, they're dark; they're adult. But right now, technologically, there's no way we can do them for the kind of $5 million mark which is the maximum we can do.''

''That's because there's so much digital animation, because we have so many digital characters. So I think the idea is we'll just hold off; we'll wait; see if there are any major breakthroughs in the next year or two and just see what's going to happen.''

Another Star Wars TV special in the works, as well as another new TV series - Star Wars: Detours - reveals creator George Lucas.

Another Star Wars TV special set during the Clone Wars era is coming, as well as a brand-new TV series entitled Star Wars: Detours, Star Wars creator George Lucas has revealed.

The new TV special will be out in America towards the end of the year, while Star Wars: Detours will ''complement Star Wars The Clone Wars'' currently on The Cartoon Network (DStv 301). George Lucas spoke to CNN about Star Wars: Detours and it wasn't immediately clear from what he said whether this is yet another new TV series, or the planned live-action Star Wars TV show that hasn't yet been referred to with a specific name.

ALSO READ: New Star Wars TV show on hold for now but will mostly be set on Coruscant; could possibly be filmed in Prague.
ALSO READ: 50 episodes of the new Star Wars live-action TV drama written and ready to go; LucasFilm just waiting for technology to catch up for special effects.

The new Star Wars TV special, the news of which was unveiled by LucasFilm at the Licensing International Expo in Las Vegas, will be based on the popular Star Wars Lego video games. It will feature characters such as Yoda, Anakin Skylwaker and Obi-Wan Kenobi.